


Straight On Til Morning

by audreycritter



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Helping each other heal, Stargazing, tw: mild grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 19:11:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14171607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Bruce wakes Dick up on a school night to show him the sky. It dredges up memories for Dick, and it would be a disaster, except it’s Bruce.And Bruce understands.





	Straight On Til Morning

 

“Dick, wake up.”

The small boy shook his head into the mountain of covers he’d assembled and then fallen asleep on.

“Dick,” Bruce said again, a whisper near the dark hair.

This time, the boy’s head flew up so fast it almost smacked Bruce in the face.

“What?” he demanded, eyes still heavy with sleep. “‘s emergency?”

“No,” Bruce said, his rumbly voice amused. “I need to show you something.”

Dick scrubbed at his face and blinked again. “Bruce? What’s wrong?” The question seemed to have some more weight this time and Bruce tousled his black curls, and then opened his arms.

“Nothing. I have something I need to show you.”

“Mmm. Okay,” Dick said, eyebrows huddling over his nose in suspicion. The way he launched himself, sleepy or not, into Bruce’s arms and clung to him belied that suspicion. He settled his chin on Bruce’s shoulder. “Where we going, Boss?”

“Outside,” Bruce said without further explanation. “And shh. You’ll wake Alfred.”

“It’s a school night.” Dick yawned. “Have you even gone to bed yet?”

“We won’t be out long,” Bruce said, ignoring the question. They padded silently down the hall and then down the stairs, and near the back door, Bruce grabbed a blanket off the arm of a prim sofa in the sun room. He wrapped it around both of them with a flick of his wrist, clutching the ends together with one fist. Dick snuggled happily down into the warmth as Bruce stepped out into the chilly night air.

The patio lights were off and Dick looked around the lawn, squinting into the dark. “What?”

“Shh,” Bruce said. “Wait.”

Dick settled his chin on Bruce’s shoulder again and grew sleepy with the rhythm of Bruce’s long stride. The house got smaller and smaller in the distance as Bruce climbed a long, shallow slope and then passed under trees. It was too dark for dappled moonlight and Dick guessed Bruce must have been navigating from memory.

Then they emerged from the copse of trees at the edge of the north field.

Abruptly, Bruce stopped, and sat down, shifting Dick to sit in his lap and enclosed in the tent of the blanket, nothing but his head peeking out the top.

“Look,” Bruce ordered. “We weren’t too late.”

Dick looked up, in the direction Bruce was pointing, and gasped.

The usual gray clouds had cleared, rolling away to reveal an expanse rich with far-flung stars, bright and glittering away from the light pollution of the city. And in the lower middle, flashes of brilliant fire lit up the sky in blinking, beautiful chaos.

“A meteor shower,” Dick breathed.

Bruce nodded. “I saw it on my way home. I wanted to show you.”

“B,” Dick whined. “How fast did you go?”

“Not too fast,” Bruce said, with a note of hesitation. “Well. Not the _fastest_ I’ve ever gone. I didn’t want you to miss this.”

“Thank you,” Dick said, leaning back against the broad chest behind him. “It’s awesome.”

For several minutes, Dick watched the sky and felt the inhale and exhale of Bruce’s breath on his head, the rise and fall of ribs against his spine. He tried not to think about other nights full of stars, nights even brighter and further from cities than this one. He tried really hard to think about the meteors above him, but as they each died away from view, his resolve crumbled.

He didn’t even know he was crying until he was twisting around to hide his face against Bruce’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Bruce said, with a note of surprise. An arm came up around his shoulders and pulled him close, and with a miserable sob, Dick buried his fingers in the fabric of Bruce’s shirt. “Dick?”

Dick shook his head and sniffed, hard, trying to stop. There was a warm hand on his back, rubbing slow circles, and stopping was impossible.

“M’sorry,” he gasped. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Bruce said gently, near his ear. “Don’t apologize.”

That was it.

It was enough.

 _“I’m_ sorry,” Bruce said, a few moments later, when Dick had calmed to just ragged little breaths and salty streaks drying on his cheeks. “I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have tried to surprise you.”

Dick didn’t feel like it would be entirely honest to say _that’s alright_ , so he didn’t. Instead, he squirmed around until he could look at the sky again, this time with Bruce’s arms circled around him under the blanket.

“Dad used to take me up to the top of the trailer. Mom would always yell at him, which made him laugh. She said there wasn’t safety equipment around the trailer; he said if I couldn’t survive a ten foot drop I wasn’t really a Grayson.” Dick paused, and Bruce’s thumb kept rubbing up and down his arm. “I mean, it was funny when he said it. She always laughed, even if she was still mad.”

“I understand,” Bruce said, and Dick let out a little sigh of relief.

“I’m glad you woke me up,” Dick said, because _this_ was true, and he felt like he could say it. “I don’t want to lose…well…”

“Everything else,” Bruce supplied quietly, and it hurt Dick’s heart a little to remember that Bruce really did understand, in a way that wasn’t just words. “I don’t either. It makes it harder when you give up everything else, too.”

“Did you?” Dick craned his neck to look at Bruce’s face, and he didn’t need another answer. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Dick,” Bruce said. “And thank you.”

“Thank you?” Dick echoed, tugging on the blanket. It tightened around him, along with Bruce’s arms. “For what?”

“I’m getting some of it back.”

“Because of…me?” Dick scrunched his face in confusion.

“You understand,” Bruce said, and something warm and soothing settled on the gaping hole in Dick’s heart, like the numbing solution Alfred had put on the scrape on his knee last week. It didn’t make it go away, but it dulled the pain a little, made it easier to bear.

Maybe that’s what he did for Bruce.

That thought made his chest even warmer. He wrapped his arms around one of the ones holding him, and watched the sky. When the last meteors were fading, he whispered.

“Are we hiding from Alfred?”

“I haven’t gone to bed,” Bruce said conspiratorially. “And I’m not going to.”

“I have school,” Dick said, frowning. He didn’t want to go back to the Manor and go to sleep if Bruce was going to just stay up until work. It didn’t seem fair.

“I think I probably should call you out, just for tomorrow,” Bruce said seriously. “We have some very important things to review.”

“Star Wars?” Dick asked hopefully. “To finish our astronomy lesson, I mean.”

“Of course,” Bruce said, standing and lifting Dick in his arms as he did. “Sound good, chum?”

“The best,” Dick agreed happily. “Can we start right away?”

“I don’t think we really have any other choice,” Bruce answered. “We have a lot of ground to cover.”

“I’ll watch the halls if you get the ice cream.”

“Deal,” Bruce said. “If we’re caught, it’s every man for himself.”

“Bruce,” Dick laughed. “We’re not gonna get caught. We’re Batman and Robin.”

**Author's Note:**

> ;)


End file.
